What if Armand's/Assad's absence in promos is intentional not in the way you think it is?
(Look, I'm as starved for Armand content as any other Armand fan but looking for anything about him in this fandom feels like endless doomscrolling nowadays and I'm tryin' to stay optimistic, so pls DON'T shoot me on the spot, just hear me out)
So. Look back on every more or less significant s3 promo we've seen so far (that is to say, not "the vodka bottle" or "the fern" level). Yes, Armand's not there, but he's not not there, you know what I mean? Lestat comes to do the documentary — we see the "Armand told the truth" tattoo. The famous "I bet, I BET!" scene? Loustat are talking about Armand. Lestat finds out about the book? Fans in the bookshop are talking about Armand. Lestat reads the book (not official promo but still)? We see children dressed like Armand on Halloween. Armand's not even there most of the time, but he seems to haunt Lestat wherever he goes. He's not there, but he's influencing the narrative... knowing what we know about Armand, doesn't that seem in character for him? He's always trying to control the narrative, he's editing himself out of Claudia's diaries, out of Louis' life (pretending to be Rashid), out of Daniel's memories. Book!Armand was the one playing Death on stage, but show!Armand is in the audience clapping hands and pretending he is not the one who's more in charge than Santiago 'cause he's the director of every play. When we first see Armand and know it's him, it's because he chose to show himself. When we learn something about his past, it's because he chose to tell us. He thinks that's what being in power means: avoiding the spotlight, appearing to be submissive and controling everything people think about him. He's traumatized and scared, and having this sort of power is his idea of protecting himself. Ironically, that's also his downfall; no matter how hard he tries, truth comes out in the open and he's left without ability to protect himself by telling the truth about his intentions: neither Louis nor the audience believe him anymore. Imagine what a shock it's going to be when in s3 the audience gets to know Armand who cares about Lestat, who's worried about Louis, who's protective over Daniel and is not nearly as malicious as they believed him to be.
Keeping all that in mind, try to look at the plot like you've never read the books: show-only fans have to assume he's The Evil Guy, just like any book reader would after the last pages of Interview with the Vampire. And then comes The Vampire Lestat, and instead of cold calculating evil Armand we see him — full gremlin mode, yes, but also out of control, desperate to be loved, afraid to navigate this world alone. The contrast between iwtv!Armand and tvl!Armand is drastic, not to mention qotd!Armand. In iwtv we see him as the villian, in tvl we learn why he is who he is, and in qotd we finally see the truth: he's deeply flawed, yes, but he's not evil, he never was. It is a journey of getting to know and love Armand in the books, and it is a wonderful experience because of all the plot twists you could not predict.
And it seems to me RJ and his team are trying to recreate this journey for both show-only fans and book readers, which is... ambitious, to say the least. We already know they're paranoid about spoiling anything: ffs, they were worried about Eric hinting at Talamasca appearance in s2, Sam even said it was a "pretty big spoiler". Who tf cared about Talamasca at that point of time? That's why it comes as absolutely no surprise for me that they're gatekeeping Armand this season: loumand interacting? After the s2 finale? Shocking spoiler for show-only fans. The role Armand plays in Lestat's past? Needless to say, big spoiler, considering they showed us next to nothing about Lestat's past. Devil's Minion? Spoiler of all spoilers, if you remember their panic when an interviewer mentioned Devil's Minion and asked about their storyline in s3 (interview with Assad, Delainey, Sam and the writers).
To sum up, if they are trying not to spoil to show-only fans how big a role Armand is going to play this season and not to let book fans know what they changed in his plotline... there's probably not so much they can show us at this point. Them misleading us in promos is not exactly new: if you were there when trailer of s2 came out, you know how many theories based on it turned out to be ridiculously wrong, not even close to what really happened. This season, I believe, it's going to be even worse: all the trailers seem rather cheerful, more comedy than tragedy, yet in the interviews actors tell us it's going to be even darker than the first two seasons; we know Marius and Akasha are a huge part of Lestat's past, but we haven't seen them yet; we see mere glimpses of Nicki like he's not that important at all, but book readers know how much he influenced Lestat and the way he chose to interact with Claudia and Louis... etc, etc, etc. Is it the right way to promote the series? I don't know. Probably not, because even book fans are worried about the plot and say they think it is going to be boring when they know for a fact TVL is anything but. Maybe this method has some merits, 'cause even though everyone's frustrated, I've seen a lot of fans vibrating out of their skin to finally watch this and see what their faves' been up to since s2 finale because we're so starved for any content about our stupid vampires. Maybe they want us to be this impatient, or maybe they've missed the mark. All I'm trying to say is please, stop doomposting about your faves not being present enough in the plot for Malicious Reasons. TVL isn't even out yet and you're already jumping to conclusions based on PROMOS, which is, like, the worst thing you can do watching the show about ureliable narrators. You can criticize the season all you want after they at least release the first episode if it's not up to your standard. Until then, remember about Hanlon's razor and let the tale seduce you.
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